In fact, I quit World of Warcraft. Again. It’s the second time that Blizzard’s behemoth has fallen out of favor with me. To be honest, it took me by complete surprise. I was frothing at the mouth for the Cataclysm, the rebooting of the world. Despite the revamped world, new direction in story telling and new content, I felt the grasp slipping. Then my ferret passed, and as sappy as it sounds, WoW and said furball were inexplicably linked in my psyche. When I was playing, she would be skittering across my keyboard. With her gone, I couldn’t bring myself to login. For months.
Solidsamm and Solidsagart have been dark since. Their candles slowly burning to the nub. June 1, 2011 saw the fire succumb to the wax pool. The subscription expired.
Azeroth has been replaced by a cavalcade of titles from niches high and low. Everything from 3DS distractions to single-player RPGs have been devoured. FPS games have seen their return, League of Legends is back on top of the regular rotation and StarCraft II has me constantly lacking pylons. On the MMOG front, Global Agenda and World of Tanks have encroached on Rift’s time, with various F2P games seeing installs from time to time. There’s little chance of any of these titles garnering my undivided attention like WoW did. That is until TERA or Guild Wars 2comes out.
Across the breadth of Azeroth, the Horde and the Alliance have dealt crushing blows to Deathwing’s elemental minions and fanatic Twilight’s Hammer cultists. Through it all, the Earthen Ring has never wavered from its tireless charge, holding Azeroth itself together amid the tidal fury and errant magical energies that churn at the Maelstrom. Yet as the elements continue their chaotic upheaval, it seems that the noble shamanic order might finally be on the verge of breaking beneath the great weight that rests on its shoulders. Even Thrall, for all of his wisdom and skill, has grown aggravated by his failure to effectively communicate with Azeroth’s elements. Recently, his calls were acknowledged, but the malevolent entity that responded has only intensified Thrall’s fears and doubts….
Patch 4.2 is nearly upon us. It will almost certainly be released this Tuesday, the 21st, bringing the new Firelands raid, lots of new daily quests in the Firelands, and much more.
Halo MMO - It would have been on the list had it ever come out.
Ladies and germs, you’ve likely been following the writers of LoreHound.com for quite some time (If not, welcome aboard!). We’ve introduced ourselves, talked about our time in World of Warcraft, discussed our past and even revealed the origins behind our now-familiar names. But what we haven’t done is reveal how we got here.
How is it that we went from players to bloggers? Was World of Warcraft our first drug, or just the latest taste? Exactly how long have we been in the MMOG scene? Are we newcomers with a penchant for deep discussion, or are we long-standing players well-versed in the genre? Perhaps we’re casual sight seers, whetting our palate with a smorgasbord of flavors and diverse textures. You’ll gain insight and answers from my personal timeline (dates are when I played). Continue Reading
If ever I need a pick-me-up to make me feel like the in-game badass that I know I can be, I know where to turn.
The World of Warcraft PTR is a magical wonderland for seeing the potential that your character possesses. Well, not your character, EXACTLY, but pretty much. The process is simple:
First, of course, download and install the WoW PTR.
Transfer a pre-made character of your preferred class (don’t worry about race or gender just yet) and wait for him/her to show up on your designated server.
Re-personalize your character to the race/gender/look that you desire. For added affect, give them a badass version of your original toon’s name.
???
PROFIT
Upon logging in, you will be delighted to own all the best pieces of both PvE and PvP sets currently available. Your bags will be filled with just about everything needed to upgrade that equipment further with gems and enchants (that you can make yourself with level-capped skills in both professions), and increase your survivability with included potions and goodies.
Blizzard wants to make it easy for PTR testers to log in and (who’d have thought) actually test the encounters and other features that are on the test server. But beyond that, it’s also amazingly fun just to be able to run around as the badass that you always knew you could be. Continue Reading
The five-volume Warcraft: Legends series has been out for a good while now, with the first book released in 2008 and the other volumes coming out over the course of about a year. But I had not yet had the chance to read them, and they actually had been off my radar for quite some time until last week when Cryptozoic announced that it had acquired exclusive rights to distribute digital versions of Blizzard’s extended universe manga.
Along with that announcement came the promotion of offering the first volume of Warcraft: Legends for free via the new Cryptozoic Comics app for iPhone and iPad. I jumped on that opportunity, and although it’s a bit belated, wanted to share my thoughts on the book for those of you also pondering the acquisition of free goodies while they’re still gratis.
Legends offers a diverse line of four unrelated stories set in various stages of the Warcraft universe.
The first story, Fallen is a collaboration between Richard Knaak and Jae-Hwan Kim. The first part of the Trag Highmountain story, Fallen follows up from the Sunwell Trilogy. The tauren Trag, who readers were first introduced to in Warcraft: Shadows of Ice, finds himself reborn as one of the undead after defeating the Baron Valimar Mordis. Mordis who had stolen the orb of Ner’zhul from the scourge and raised a frost wyrm, ultimately intending to spread the will of the forsaken. Trag crushed both the Baron and the orb — but in doing so cursed himself to undeath. Continue Reading
Cryptozoic, the company that has been responsible for the WoW TCG for over a year, is now Blizzard’s partner for distributing their manga works in digital and printed form for their various franchises.
Notably, the Cryptozoic iPad app can now purchase Blizzard works as they are released and the backlog is updated. The current selection as of the publishing of this post is as follows:
Each of these will run you $5.99. Warcraft Legends Vol #1 is free til June 2, and all of the other comics (except for Legends Vol #2) have a free preview that includes the cover art and first chapter.
First he’d shout “Damn it!” and then he’d get whatever information he was after. Possibly dieing in the act – only to be resuscitated – but definitely killing and maiming en route. That’s unless Kiefer Sutherland’s career re-invigorating role took place in Azeroth. In Blizzard’s fantasy world, Jack Bauden is trapped by a simple net as the terrorist plot to blow up the the Cathedral of Light, a shining beacon of the Light in Stormwind, ticks dangerously close to endgame.
We adventurers are the last hope, the only ones that can save the priests, foil the plans and determine the mastermind behind the dastardly attempt. And stop him.
Bauden’s appearance and its homage to Fox’s 24 appears in the later stages of a long quest line written to display Prince Anduin’s coming of age and growing intellect. It’s an early Cataclysm chain, kicking off, progressing and (almost) culminating all inside Stormwind’s ruined walls.
Horde players can check out the video above to see what they’ve missed. Alliance players may want to relive the SI:7 mission, or see what they’re missing.
Everyone and their dog has an opinion on “premium” services in WoW. There are some people that feel that because WoW charges a monthly fee, it is unethical to charge for some premium services. Currently, there are quite a few services that Blizzard offers to enhance your MMO experience:
Purchasable pets and mounts in the Blizzard Store (Celestial Steed, Lil XT, etc), $10-$25 per item, applies to all characters
Many MMOs have gone free-to-play, where the only revenue from the game is from optional, purchasable services like the ones Blizzard offers for WoW. However, WoW requires you to pay a non-trivial amount to play per month, as well as the price tag of the game. Here are the current numbers for the software and game time on the Blizzard store and Amazon as of the publishing of this post:
World of Warcraft: Cataclysm (requires Wrath of the Lich King), $39.99 Blizzard Store, $39.99 Amazon. (currently on sale on Amazon for $28.95 on May 30, 2011)
That’s just for the software licenses, a total of $110 as of the publishing of this post for US players purchasing on the Blizzard Store. For game time, players have the following options:
30 days, $14.99 (about $0.50 a day)
60 day prepaid card, $28.99 Amazon (about $0.48 a day)
90 days, $41.97 (about $0.46 a day)
180 days, $77.94 (about $0.43 a day)
So how do these premium services, especially the cross-server RealID invite, fit in? Continue Reading
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